Nashville’s Keean Johnson Cast In Alita: Battle Angel

Credit: ABC

In an exclusive by The Hollywood Reporter, it was revealed that Nashville’s Keean Johnson has been cast in an important role in Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel.

Keean Johnson will be playing the love interest opposite Scorch Trials actress Rosa Salazar. Salazar is playing the lead character Alita, a female cyborg who wakes up in a scrap yard. Johnson will be playing Hugo, a young man who teaches Alita how to play a game called Motorball. He also has a secret job of stealing robot parts, which may serve as a source of conflict if discovered by Alita. Or, maybe that’s just me theorizing.

The audition process for the role of Hugo was apparently very intensive. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the process was lengthy and there were several contenders for the role:

The studio did at least two rounds of testing for the part, all of them taking place in Rodriguez’s studio facility in Austin. Among those who tested were Tut star Avan Jogia, Douglas Booth (Jupiter Ascending), Jack Lowden (who will be seen in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming war drama Dunkirk), and Noah Silver, one of the stars of TVs Tyrant.

In the end, the filmmakers and studio went with a route that called for an “ethnically ambiguous” actor and the fresh-faced Johnson fit the bill.

via The Hollywood Reporter

Keean Johnson is most known for his work on television, especially on ABC’s Nashville. He’s played Colt Wheeler on the show since 2014. He’s also worked on the Freeform show The Fosters and was on the Canadian TV series Spooksville.

Alita: Battle Angel is a collaborative project between James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez will be directing the movie and Cameron will be producing with his partner Jon Landau. Actors Christoph Waltz, Jackie Earl Haley, and Ed Skreinhave already been announced as cast for the film. The tentative release date for the film is July 20, 2018.

What do you think about this news? How about the audition process? Are you excited for this adaptation? Let us know in the comments below.

Sarah Musnicky

Sarah is a freelance writer and self-described workaholic. She loves fantasy and sci fi and will admit having dual loyalties between Star Trek and Star Wars as well as Marvel and DC. When she's not being socially awkward, she is in a corner obsessing over dragons, cute things, and a need to master all languages on the planet. She would like to be a professional blanket burrito when she reaches the peak of maturation.